Sophie's 9th Birthday!

We celebrated Sophie's 9th birthday at "As You Wish" pottery painting. It was perfect for her, our little crafter!

We had a whole painter/artist theme, from the invites (shaped as pallets with circle punched colors for the paints), to the cake from Hollie's Hot Cakes :

It slid in the box on transport, sorry Hollie! The pictures do not quite do it justice. It was also delicious. The birthday girl wanted vanilla with strawberry filling. Hollie makes her cakes FROM SCRATCH! One of our party guests said "that was the best cake I have ever had in my whole life". Pretty good review from an 8 year old!

Our goodies for the guests were paint tins with a set of paints and some "paint splattered" (sprinkles) Funfetti cake pops:

Each child got to choose a piece along with colored glazes. It was a good age for this type of party, they all had a good attention span for it.

 

Especially the birthday girl:

 What attention to detail!

After painting we did cake and ice cream then presents!

 We get to pick up all their fired pieces on Tuesday, can't wait to see them. Happy Birthday Sophie!

Pinterest Sunday? Well...sort of...

Pinterest Sunday was interrupted this week by an impromptu camping/riding trip to the desert. Our plan was to make a test run of cake pops, and if they turned out well, make them for Sophie's upcoming birthday party. We did finally make them on Monday. Our flavor choice was Funfetti cake mixed with home made butter-cream frosting. We coated some with chocolate and some with white chocolate.

 

 We each got to try one, and decided they were good enough to use for Sophie's party. Everyone was bummed I would not let them eat anymore, so we made a second batch, red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting:

They were a hit!

Decorated

 I finally got a day with Tony home to do some "honey-dos". He was able to install an over the range microwave, new (programmable) thermostat, and do the trim and decorations for the girls' walls:

And here are some pictures, just for fun, of Alexa dressed up for decades day, for her school's spirit week leading up to homecoming:

 And in rare form for Alexa, she let me actually take pictures of her. They had to still wear their school uniform skirts, and could only dress up from the waist up. I think she did such a good job with her costume. Can you guess what decade seniors had?

School Pictures

I love how my girl's school pictures turned out! Thanks to Amanda from Pie in the Sky Photography we have some unique, fun, not your run of the mill school pictures.

Sophie, 8 years old, 3rd grade:

Outfit details:

Shirt and tie : JC Penny's

Skirt: Justice

Shoes: Target

Hair Flower: J Wag's doodads (available at Scrapbooks Etc.)

Glasses: Alexa's ;-)

Celeste, 13 years old, 8th grade:

 Outfit details:

Dress: Ruche

Shoes: Mom's closet :-)

And a couple of them together:

 Outfit details:

Celeste's shoes: Target

Sophie's shirt and shorts: JC Penny's

Sophie's Necklace: Forever 21

Sophie's hair flower: J Wag's Doodads (scrapbooks, etc.)

Antique Mall Finds

It will be a while until our "finds" find their permanent homes in our home, so for now here is a sneak peek at what we got:

 Old farmhouse paned windows. The yellow one will go "as is" to my bedroom and the white one may get a fresh, distressed coat of paint for my living room.

 

 Tony's finds, old radio and phone extension. The tag on the phone says "non-working", DUH!

This shabby table will get a fabric covered foam seat and become a bench for my bedroom.

 

This little old school desk already found a home in the girls' room. We also picked up the little personal chalk board hanging on the wall.

 

I got this just because it was funny/cute to me. Published in 1951, I am sure it is ripe with misinformation {even the cover has a baby on its tummy, not what we are told to do these days}. I will have to read trough the section on breastfeeding, I am sure it will be hilarious!

These are going to be a bed side table in Alexa's room. Her room eventually will have a world traveler theme with her pictures of Europe, etc.

We also picked up an assortment of old kitchen gadgets (rolling pins, graters, apron, sifters. etc) that will be hung on the soffit above our kitchen cabinets.

The whole time we were keeping our eyes out for windows, old typewriters, and an old Singer. I described to Tony the black metal with gold writing of the Singer sewing machines that I like. We never saw one but Tony did find me this:

 It's not a Singer, but it sure is pretty. Best part, we plugged in in and it works!

Mini Vacation Day 5

The last day of our mini vacation we were in a hurry to get home, but we did stop at a few antique malls in Albuquerque and got some fun stuff.

We passed on a cool find, and are kinda kicking ourselves. It's my fault because I want to remodel our kitchen and get all new appliances. I have had old appliances for too long. I should have considered this option a little more. We found one of these:

In this shade of PINK!:

 These photos are from the Internet, I did not get a picture of the one we saw.

We probably should have gotten it, it was really cool and actually even cuter than these. I didn't really think about the fact that we could have had it restored or even use it as a shell with a new range top etc. The best part is that Tony liked it and would have gotten it. Oh well! Live and learn.

Mini Vacation Day 4

Day four of our vacation was a little rocky.

Let's just say that a night of storms, lack of sleep, and a not so kind monthly visitor put me in a pretty grouchy mood.

There was a highlight though, meeting this little guy:

 We stopped at Tony's sister's place in Oklahoma City and met the newest addition to the family, her grandson Santiago, 11 days old. He was such a sweet little guy. I had to get some pictures of his cute little baby parts. Glad I got a baby fix, it sure brightened my day.

Shopping at a fun books store and a fabulous dinner helped, too!